


Was Blind, But Now I See

by admiraloftheships



Category: True Detective
Genre: Amazing Grace - Freeform, Direct Sequel, roland cries, roland isn't dumb, true detective season 3 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/admiraloftheships/pseuds/admiraloftheships
Summary: Continues directly after the events of Now Am Found. Henry passes Roland the address Wayne had in his pocket. With some doubts of his own starting to form, Roland decides to pursue this one last lead, in hopes of closure.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Was Blind, But Now I See

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing grace! how sweet the sound  
> That sav'd a wretch like me!  
> I once was lost, but now am found,  
> Was blind, but now I see.  
>  -John Newton, 1779

They had sat there in companionable silence, just sipping Heather’s tea, and watching Purple’s grandkids play around in the front yard. Roland ruffled the puppy’s fur, and tried to tamp down on his smile. 

He hadn’t had too much to smile about, the past few years before Purple and his son had turned up on his doorstep, asking to go back and solve the case.

And they had, hadn’t they? Not too bad for a couple old dicks like themselves, Roland thought. He turned his mind to the case for a quick second. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Purple that he didn’t feel closure. There was something left, somewhere. Some little scrap of information he couldn’t grab. 

One last time, Roland told himself, flip through the years and think. Julie Purcell went on the run. She found a place to stay, stayed for nearly four years between 1991 and 1995 at the convent. Volunteered. And then HIV. Couldn’t some of those fancy-ass scientists just go out and kill that little fucker already? Hell, Roland snarled in his mind, it was 2015. 

Roland took another sip of the tea. But it was all finished, wasn’t it? Maybe. But Roland had been a detective for nearly 20 years before being promoted to Lieutenant. He knew better than to dismiss those lingering questions. 

One of which was this. Julie had died of HIV. But from whatever he knew, HIV didn’t kill you direct. It took out your body’s defenses, and other shit came in and finished the job. Fucking virus didn’t even have the guts to do it itself. 

So how had they known that she’d had HIV? It wasn’t like they blood-tested every volunteer who came into the convent. And even if they did, why’d Julie have stayed? 

Julie had been running ever since that one-eyed piece of shit let her out. Why’d she stop? Maybe she’d found someone, Roland thought, the way Purple had gone with him to locate the Burns dipshit and ended up meeting Amelia Reardon. 

So she’d stayed, helping out with the convent, and the boy she loved, Roland thought. Finally, some sickness had caught up with her, and she’d died in ‘95. 

The more he’d thought about it, the more convinced Roland was. In ‘90 it was him and Purple, and Kindt reopening the investigation, which made her run further. And only a year or so later, in a place not even out of state, she settles? 

The way Julie had talked on that call, she never would’ve stayed that long. No way they’d gotten bloodwork, Roland decided. They couldn’t even get her birthday or age. 

No, Mary July was all they had, and they had three years’ worth of pictures to prove it. All the way up to about a month before she’d died. None of her sick, which, Roland figured, was morbid enough not to take pictures of. 

There must’ve been someone to convince her to stay. Someone with a connection to her beyond the fleeting impression she’d had on that nun they’d met. 

And call him a romantic, as he looked at Henry and Heather, but Roland was betting on a first love. 

A convent for girls. Who could’ve been there?

A memory, just days ago. That man, doing the lawn. Mike. What’d he say?

He’d been doing it for years. Before that his dad done it. 

Looked about the age Julie would be had she beat that virus to hell. Mike. That name was familiar. So had been the name on the back of his truck. Roland’s memory wasn’t shot to Nam and back like Purple’s was, but still he needed some time to recall the name. 

Ardoin Landscaping, Roland seemed to recall it was. Could be him. Might not be. But shit, Roland thought, didn’t they interview that kid back in ‘80? Yeah. Mike Ardoin. He’d written down that name himself, hadn’t he, while Purple went to smile at Amelia. 

Wasn’t that kid the one who might’ve liked Julie? So then years later, that Mike kid grows up, and then he heads off on his usual beat to the convent, and runs across some volunteer who’s so damn familiar and maybe he gets a little closer and he-

“Damn,” Roland said aloud, softly. 

“Roland?” Purple’s eyes are pretty damn sharp now, but Roland just leaned back further, petting the dog. 

“Naw, it’s nothing man. Just thinking bout all that shit we went through, and now we get to be here. It’s the life, man.” Roland smiled. He meant that.

“Hell yeah,” Purple said back. 

So, Roland thought. He recognises her. He has to. And then she stays. She’d die, of course, but still. He has to find the Ardoin kid, Roland realises. Maybe that’ll be the closure he needs. Learn about the last years of her life, from the man who loved her. Give the Ardoin kid a chance to reminisce. 

That remained the plan, until moments later, when Roland strode indoors to get a refill on his iced tea. The floorboards creaked behind him, and Henry came up beside him. Purple’s kid looked a bit uneasy.

“Want some more tea, Henry?” Roland asked. 

“Yeah, thanks, sir,” Henry replied, one hand holding out his glass, the other going into his pocket. 

“Got something you need to tell me?” Roland said, keeping his voice low.

“Here.” Henry pressed a crumpled up piece of paper in Roland’s palm. Roland set down the glass and unfurled it. “1208 Allegra Lane. Greenland. What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“It’s where Pop was this morning. He had it written down.”

And Henry went back outside, picking up his glass. 

Purple had it written down, Roland thought. He’d wanted to go there, not wandered to God-knew-where because he’d fucked up his mental map outta his garage. Maybe he oughta go there too, Roland decided. 

No need to tell Purple about all this yet. Tomorrow, Roland decided, he’d look up the Ardoin kid, then head out to wherever he lived and this Allegra Lane place afterwards. Roland strode back outside in time to introduce himself to the grandkids. 

“Howdy, there,” he said, grinning. “I’m an old friend of this old man right here. Name’s Roland West. And what’re yours?”

As they chorused their names to him, Roland found himself smiling again. Shit, man, he thought. Who knew kids were this adorable?

The next morning, Roland decided to finally leave his house around noon. He’d asked around to see if anyone could get an address on the Ardoin kid, but no one had replied yet. 

He pulled on some pants, strapped the gun in on instinct, and out the door he went, waving to the dogs as he drove off. The note Henry had gave him was on the dashboard, and it was a smooth drive into Allegra Lane. He’d just passed 1214 when his phone rang.

“Fuckin hell, it took them this long to pull one address?” Roland muttered, stopping the car and pulling out his phone. 

“Yeah? Fucking finally. Alright, what’s the address?”

He was halfway through writing it down when he realised. “Say that again?”

“ _ Why? _ ” his contact asked.

“Cause I’m fucking old, man, come on.” Roland snarled. 

“ _ 1208 Allegra Lane. Greenland _ .”

He’d heard it right, then. Fuck. 

Roland hung up and stared at Purple’s note again. Jesus, Roland realised. Purple wasn’t too bad of a detective himself, so of course he’d made the connection, found the Ardoin kid. Then he forgot, and he didn’t get the chance to…

Jesus, Roland thought again. Purple had gotten so fucking close. Well, he’d finish it for him. Roland put the car into drive and drove up to 1208 Allegra Lane. The Ardoin kid’s truck was in the driveway. There was still something, Roland clenched his fingers on the wheel, something he was forgetting. Some detail that would change everything. 

He looked at the house. Nice garden, nice little house with grey slate walls, a kid’s bicycle lying around outside. Roland got out of the car and walked towards the house. He rang the doorbell. 

Something was missing, something right there at the tip of his tongue. He heard footsteps, and just before the door opened Roland realised he had to run through a plausible story real quick.

But then the door opened, and everything fell into place. 

Because beside the Ardoin kid was his daughter. Because his daughter couldn’t even be fifteen, had to have been born after 1995, and because the Ardoin kid was a romantic, so that meant…

That meant…

“Oh my God,” Roland whispered, looking at the girl, then at Ardoin. Because the girl was a spitting image of a picture that he’d shown to dozens of people back in ‘80.

“Can we help you, sir?” Ardoin asked. 

“Hey, I remember you. You and a friend of yours came by the convent when I was cleaning it the other week.” Ardoin smiled at him warmly. “How you doing, sir?”

“His friend came yesterday,” the girl chimed in. Lucy, Roland remembered. Her name was Lucy. My God, he thought again. Lucy. 

“He did?” Ardoin asked, frowning down at his daughter. Lucy nodded. “He came when Mommy and I were watering the flowers, and he said he was lost. I gave him water.”

“Yes, he did,” Roland finally said. “Name’s Roland West. My friend’s Wayne Hays. I just wanted to come here and see if you knew him.”

“Knew him?” Ardoin furrowed his brows. “Now that you mention it, you and your friend do look familiar to me.”

“Maybe you knew his wife? Amelia Reardon?” Roland asked. He had to be careful. He could hear someone washing plates at the back, and his heart was jumping wildly. 

Ardoin’s face brightened. “Ms Reardon! Yeah, I remember her. Great teacher. She taught me English for...four years? Must’ve been the most I ever enjoyed an English class.”

Roland smiled. “I’m sure Wayne’ll be glad to hear it. She died, couple years ago, and one day he decided he wanted to check if any old students remembered her. For old times sake. It’s just-” Roland shrugged, “-Wayne has had some memory problems, and he left without meeting you. I wanted to come in his place today.”

“No problem at all, Mr West,” Ardoin smiled. “Why don’t you come in, and I’ll tell you what I remember of Ms Reardon so you can tell Wayne?”

Roland’s legs trembled a little as he stepped into their house. Then a voice called out from the back. “Honey, who was that?”

“A friend of an old teacher of mine,” he called back. “Wants to know what I remember.”

“Well, what do you remember?”

Mike Ardoin’s wife came out of the kitchen, and it was her. It was her. A little older than the pictures from ‘94, but hell, Roland knew he sure as hell didn’t look like himself from ‘94.

Julie Purcell. Thirty-five years later. But they’d found her. Both of them. Roland felt his knees buckle, and Ardoin was helping him onto the couch as he started crying. 

“You always beat me to it, Purple,” Roland whispered. 

“Mr West?” Ardoin and Julie looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Mr Ardoin.” Roland confessed. “You do remember me, and my friend Wayne, and I’m about to tell you why. We interviewed you, in 1980. Me, Wayne, and Amelia. We interviewed you about a missing girl.”

Julie’s face was a mixture of wariness and alarm, and Mike Ardoin’s face was surprise and shock. 

“Lucy, go clean the rest of the dishes, please,” Ardoin said softly.

“But Mom was doing it!” Lucy protested.

“Lucy,” Julie said. “go on.” Lucy let out a resigned breath, but went into the kitchen. 

“Mrs Ardoin,” Roland said. “My friend and I, we’ll never tell a soul. You met my partner yesterday. Old man, got lost, forgets things.”

“Do you trust him?” Ardoin said, his eyes locked on Roland’s. 

Julie nodded. “Yes.”

Ardoin relaxed. “I remember you now. Detective West. You and your partner took on the...case.”

Roland nodded. “We did. We also reopened the investigation in 1990. And we kept searching, in secret.”

He hesitated. “Or at least, my partner did. Wayne. He never gave up. Always said Julie Purcell was out there somewhere. Meanwhile, I’d known Tom Purcell well, and, well, he’d be proud.”

Roland had to rub away the deluge of tears. 

“I’m sorry for coming here like this, but I had to know the truth. We thought we had it, when after years of searching, we found out about Isabel Hoyt and Junius Watts. We went to the convent. I thought it was over, but Wayne found out otherwise. I only wish he remembered it.”

Julie leaned forward, wrapping her hands around Roland’s.

“You did it, Detective West. You and your partner. You did it. You found me, when no one else could. Thank you, Detective West.”

“No,” Roland said. “You can’t thank me, I-I messed up, I could’ve done more, found you sooner, kept you safer.”

“You and Wayne did everything you could,” Julie said, her face determined. “You kept at it, Detective West, and you found us.”

“I’d hoped to be there for a reunion,” Roland whispered, “but seeing this. You turned around the life you had. You made a family. This is...no, I have to thank you. You-this, it’s like you’re giving me hope back.”

“Hope in what?” Ardoin said.

“Shit, I don’t really know,” Roland said. “Life. In the story of lives. That eventually it’ll be alright. That we can move on with life. That happy endings can fucking happen.”

Julie reached out and hugged him, and Roland felt more tears spring out of some hidden wellspring he never knew existed. 

“I once was lost, but now I’m found, Detective West. I’ve found myself, and you’ve found me.”

“Thank you,” Roland repeated. “I was lost, too. My partner and I, we were, we were...”

Roland thought of the convent, and the case, and the years spent, and how finally, closure, and closure felt amazing, because it was over, and it ended with a happy ending. 

Hesitantly, he asked. “Do you, would you mind if I came back? Brought Wayne back with me? I don’t want to impose, but-”

“Of course,” Julie said. “Yes, you can come whenever you like. I owe you, for trying so hard, all these years. Please, come back. We must introduce ourselves properly to you and your partner. You did it, Detective West. You deserve this.”

Roland could’ve kept crying, right then. He stopped, because he needed to talk. “I don’t know much about deserving. But I think I needed this.”

Julie Purcell, the lost girl, now found, hugged him again, and Lucy came back out, walking over, and hugged him too. “Why’re you sad?” she asked him, as surprised, Roland hugged her back.

“Did you lose something?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, I think I did,” Roland said, choking back tears. 

Julie and Mike entwined their fingers and watched, tears welling in their eyes as well. 

“I lost something important, and me and my friend went looking and looking, but for so long we couldn’t find it.” Roland closed his eyes, and the years rolled over him, and with it the people. Lori. Tom. Lucy. Amelia. And Purple, always him and Purple, together, and Roland knew he was coming back, and together they would find that closure at last.

“So did you find what you were looking for?” Lucy asked.

Roland smiled, and he tasted salt on his lips. “Yes, we did. We were looking in the wrong place. It was there all along.”

And a song from far down in the depths of his soul, back when he was no older than Lucy, back in that church with his mom and dad beside him, rose back up.

“What was lost was now found,” he told Lucy, “and although it was found a long time ago, it took us sometime for me to realise it had been found.”

“I was blind, but now, I see.”

**Author's Note:**

> After rewatching the finale of season 3, I realised that Roland hadn’t had the chance for closure like Wayne had, and that Henry had decided to keep the note. So, what if Roland had gotten the note? And Roland, not being dumb, would likely have figured out something was off, too. And finally, the title of the finale. Now Am Found. It was a reference to Amazing Grace, and the next line, I’d hoped, would make a great way to conclude my version of events. "I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now, I see." I know Pizzolatto wanted to leave it a little open, but I wanted Roland to have something. A conclusion of sorts, to everything, which is a little more solid than what Pizzolatto gave us.


End file.
